Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Shoelid took took the words right out of my mouth. I feel like, from a coding standpoint alone, trying to give every single NPC (even if they're given a group behavior like "peasant" or "guard") fighting mechanics would be a nightmare. And from a fun standpoint, there ARE times I just want to turn off my brain and murder things. Special/rare NPCs, or enemies in a dungeon, or non-player node defenders I can see (and enjoy) being more of a pain. But not every single one every single time.
Another ability that could be given is dodge. So you are fighting a mob and all the sudden the mob moves to left or right a little and dodges the attack.
I already mentioned gving mobs the ability to run and having to be cced to kill.
Just because lots of mobs have an ability does not mean it has to proc all the time. The would just know that certain mobs enrage and he had to be prepared for it if they did.
Really it is conceivable that with lets say 20 common abilities distributed to the world abroad could have a huge impact on the game.
So lets say Mobs could hit you for lets say 33 percent of max health that would either make you use a healing potion or possibly kill but that could only happen to you ounce every ten minutes that would not be so bad. This would be enrage I guess. This would break the monotomy of the world and make players be more careful cause had to be ready when mobs used their abilities.
This would be pretty good. In the open world there are going to be open world dungeouns, events, caravans , opent world pvp, plus the standard MMO things like questing and farming resources and mats. Plus this game is designed to have the population spread out so possibility of running into people is probable. So the open world would still be very immersive and fun.
But lets say you want to say spend a more time son on a few mobs and give them special abilities. Well then if you put this special mobs in high trafick areas like around dugneoun entrances, travel routes. around battlegrounds then more people would have the oppurtunity to enjoy them , unless it is one of those mobs you have to hunt for (rare mob) of course.
Variance makes it less monotonous, but if we're talking about high end fights, I don't want the result of the fight to be determined on how lucky you were with the "mechanics". I don't know yet how the fights will look in AoC, but that's my thought based on other MMO's at least.
Can still be variance there, but for easier content or open world normal enemies, you could have a ton of variance without a problem, and that would be awesome.
When it comes to dungeon mobs and bosses complex AI behavior and a little randomness is obviously amazing, as long as it doesnt wipe the whole group/raid because you got "bad rng".
Please, Intrepid, please do NOT add Silence or CCs that can't be avoided. Certain fights I can understand, but I would rather be forced to react to an NPC by dodging, rolling, jumping, etc. instead of watching a cast meter to avoid the next Silence spell or interrupt a stun effect.
I am eager to see a world without NPC
1.npc(dps) gets low health npc(healer) now wants to throws a heal on him or trys to steal the aggro from the player/ shield said friend
2. to see npcs all target the same player or avoid tank to kill dps/ healer
3. maybe an option to pay the npc not to kill you / a toll in a road (quest)?
4. npc uses illusions to look like A friend of A player on friends list/group when attacked npc changes back to npc form. In a raid/group players have the same tag as the npc and raid/group cant talk so they have to figure out which one befor time runs out. Players of raid/group window hides so u cant target said player.
As far as combat NPCs go , I don't mind some randomness if it makes sense. Or things like if I am in a group and a party member gets relatively low. The mobs swap targets to someone who drops below 30% health. As if they have some sort of focus fire now that someone is low. This also though then kind of negates the role of a tank in this situation so probably would not work on all mobs.
Heroes Fade but Legends last forever
You´d just turn into a NPC when you log out
Strictly timed mechanics with no room for random behavior makes a battle super boring super fast. Because you know the boss is gonna do his special sword swing in that particular direction when he's at 86% life. If you've done the fight enough times you can fight even the hardest boss in your sleep because you can predict the whole battle from beginning to end.
The NPC also feels much more alive if he reacts to your actions instead of just following a strict order of behavior.
Ex: npc one have a extra defense, but after he make a heavy atack he take more dmg for few seconds
As a bad example is old lineage catacombs, where mobs just spawned and died instant resulting in afk farming which was not fun at all.
In lineage 2 awakening the mobs were more active so you barely could afk farming, my expectation from this game is to have even more active mobs so nobody can AFK farm.
The unpredictability would discourage addons that reduce encounters to paint-by-number and make it less meaningful to try and compare you performance to others. When the fight is scripted and you've beat it a few times, all that's left is "Well, did we kill it faster than last time or not?" Which is a bit said, to boil a fight down to the duration.
I have to imagine it is more challenging to build in variability but I think it is a worthy endeavor.
Anyhow, I would at least like to see "needs based" actions, like "stun the opponent, run away, and heal".... even when they are not "low" on health, players do that all the time. Buffing and Combos with the aspects for their abilities... etc
- Frufire
A bear generally isn't a tactical genius. So bears would all fight a certain way. A higher level bear could do something the lower level ones don't. Or if a goblin were to ride a bear you could have different tactics.
There should be a pool of things that a mob can do that matches their lore and setting. Variety in that pool is fine, and would keep people on their toes. Randomize it too much and people wouldn't feel like they're able to learn the encounters.
Now, if dungeons have multiple levels to descend into that get more difficult as you delve, then this idea would be an interesting challenge.
If you are not aware. Mob socialization occurred when you mob rain away, and got friends (agroing more mobs), usually to many. Causing adds. Sure, you can solo one maybe two, but three or 20?
This mechanic made sense. You get beat up, your gunna get friends, right? Mobs did this in EQ. You could "train" a whole dungeon, because you pissed off one mob. You beat on my brother, I'm gunna get all our aunts and cousins.
WoW dummied this feature down, because of the "wipes" these "trains" caused, and we're not popular. Murlocks for example.
In today's MMORPGs, you don't worry about mob socialization. There is enough space to see and avoid mobs, and mobs just don't socialize.
Mob social should be a viable tactic for mobs imo, instead of trying to rework a breath weapon a hundred times.
It all depends on how much work you wanna put into your npcs, becouse the less random it is and the harder it will be to pragram and design.
Anyway randomness can be a good thing to use when a npc it is not conditioned by anything and all the choises led to a similar effect ... example: a npc can cast 2 different buffs on him, they have similar power and they influence the fight in the same way , but one can free him from a dot and the second can dispell a debuff on himself. In this case it cannot be random but the npc need to choose the best .. or the worst, following a strategic pattern. Why? Becouse randomness must never lead any character to be more or less powerful just by a roll of dice from the computer. That's bad game design and not fun or strategic.
Dude you just have all this questions ... i feel you need to hire me at this point xD , you seem to be a lot confused on how the game needs to be. If you want my help i can direct you to a good result.
The dev questions have the purpose to ask some subjective feedback, personal preferences ... i believe , not how to make a game.
If this world is made by the Goddess i'm the God xD , nice to meet you my little slavs.... devs
This is a little off topic but be pretty cool if average price of item at auction house was known. Lots of players vendor loot to the game and well loose oppurtunity to make little extra gold.
They all have one thing in common which makes for less engaging and more tank and spank fights. Build a bruiser and kill or be killed. Every other build will have a much harder time soloing mobs that are of a higher lvl or even an elite mob. I can give a more extreme example in runescape but I think that's probably pushing it.
I'm talking about mobs having auto attacks inbetween their mechanics that cannot be dodged in any way, melee and range.
Simply put, you see melee attack is coming, you step/dodge/roll out of its melee range? In FFXIV, it'll hit you no matter what. Line of sight might interrupt their attacks for a little bit, soft/hard cc might stop it for 5s, but then your cc is on cooldown and it starts bashing on you again. Kiting it without cc is impossible because the mobs just run you down unless you have something that greatly increases your movespeed.
Ranged is basically the same, just with a greater range. All projectiles are "homing" if you catch my meaning. There's no sidestepping one if you see the mob preparing it. It's just damage added on top of the possible mechanics that particular mob might have and there's no way for you to take on a mob without taking ANY damage whatsoever. Which then also makes it impossible for you to even attempt taking on higher lvl mobs because of defense difference. (At least solo, most of this is from a solo perspective, I like wandering around, finding a cool elite mob and try to take it down.)
It's a design choice and from the latest stream and little combat that has been shared, it looked like the mobs will have these kinds of undodgeable auto attacks. Allthough there wasn't much to see yet. We also saw evasion and blocking pop up every now and again which also takes away from active evading or blocking. But on the other hand, there was a dodge roll right there (with or without an i-frame, doesn't matter) and the fact that our own auto attack isn't actually an auto but you have to actively push a buttons and it has a cone of attack we have to at least aim ouselves tells me that implementing this for mobs is very doable too?
This example may give me flack but I played the recent preview for New World and for all the things it lacked or did wrong. I really did enjoy the combat (allthough it still being very clunky and in need of a lot of polish) for this particular reason. Look at the mob, dodge or block what is coming, even just by walking or running, and attack accordingly. I think this can be done even with a tab target system. It's not because our arrows are "homing" that theirs have to be, right?
TLDR. It's a design choice but as a player that likes active combat and plays FFXIV at the same time, don't add undodgeable attacks to mobs, may they be literal mechanics that can possibly slow, stun or stagger you, or just plain old damaging auto attacks that will hit you no matter how far out of melee range you run or walk or no matter how much you try dodge rolling that arrow that's coming for you. (Assuming you don't have that i-frame (GW2) and/or cannot dodge roll forever due to limited stamina). At least not to normal mobs that are possibly soloable. Even I'm not stupid enough to see a dragon 10 times my size and "wonder if I could kill it".
A good example of what I would like to see is New World from an NPC perspective. A bad example is FFXIV.
I'd like to see mobs in different regions having a more common aggro type, like mobs in the underrealm predominantly using sound for aggro and possessing a poor or absent sight aggro capability. Perhaps Bards could have group sound negating sneak songs, or Rogues have invis but with a Bard secondary can create an obscuring cloud for the group--and those are just a couple obvious possibilities.
I would like to see enemies that dodge, defend themselves, fight back like in New World Amazon's game.
In short, I would like to see a challenging combat system, an AI with many mechanics and whose difficulty forces you to generate strategies, that is, to use your brain.